Visit www.MyPyramid.gov to learn about the new
Food Guide Pyramid. The new Pyramid emphasizes:
Activity, Moderation, Personalization, Proportionality,
Variety and Gradual Improvement. On this website
you can learn about the food groups that deliver
essential nutrition: Grains, Vegetables, Fruits, Milk,
Meat & Beans, and Oils. Check it out!

We receive many inquiries about foods and
beverages sold in schools. Some nutritionists believe
that with respect to beverages, only low-fat or skim
milk (plain or chocolate-flavored) or water should be
offered to school children. Others feel that 100%
juice can also be offered, but juice can present a
problem. Although 100% orange, grapefruit, tomato
or vegetable juice offer significant quantities of
valuable nutrients, other juices such as 100% grape
juice or 100% apple juice do not. So consulting the
Nutrition Facts label is a wise idea when making
decisions about which beverages to stock.

In general, the goal is to discourage the consumption
of foods and beverages of high energy (or calorie)
density and minimal nutritional value -- but how do
you figure this out? Some people define nutritional
value in terms of energy density and micronutrient
delivery. The goal here is to encourage the selection
of foods that are a good source of micronutrients
(vitamins and minerals) and fiber, but are of LOW
energy density, that is they deliver fewer calories per
serving.

How do you know if a food is a good source of
micronutrients? You can use the Nutrition Facts
label and apply the "5 - 20 Rule." If the Nutrition
Facts label says that a food offers 5% or less of the
daily value (DV) of a micronutrient, then that food IS
NOT a good source of that micronutrient. On the
other hand, if the label says the food offers 20% or
more of the DV for a micronutrient, then the food IS
a good source of that micronutrient.

How do you figure out the Energy Density or E.D. of
a food? Dr. Barbara Rolls defines the E.D. of a food
based on the "Nutrition Facts" label found on that
food. E.D. is calculated as the calories in one
serving divided by the weight (in grams) of that
serving. If one food has an E.D. of 1.0 and another
has an E.D. of 2.0, you will get twice as many
calories from one serving of the second food. So the
second food, with the higher E.D., is more energy (or
calorie) dense. Since virtually all foods sold in
vending machines will carry a Nutrition Facts label,
the E.D. of those foods can easily be calculated and
compared. Calculating the ED of foods sold in school
vending machines would be a good math and
nutrition exercise for school students.

In her book, Volumetrics, Dr. Rolls has described four
categories of E.D.:
Very Low E.D. is less than 0.6
Low E.D. is 0.6 to 1.5
Medium E.D. is 1.5 to 4.0
High E.D. is 4.0 to 9.0

Remember that even though you want to encourage
consumption of foods with a lower E.D., some foods
with a higher E.D. may turn out to be a good source
of micronutrients. So you need to balance the
results of the 5 - 20 Rule with the E.D. of a food
before you make your final decision about a food.

Watching less TV can result in improved weight
management if you routinely substitute even light
activity for sitting in front of the tube. This is true
for adults as well as children. TV TurnOff Week is
April 25 through May 1. Please visit TVTURNOFF.ORG
for more information and step by step instructions on
how to organize TV TurnOff events in your
community. You can also call 202-233-9220

Reduce TV and all recreational screen time
(gameboys, computer games, video or DVD viewing,
etc.) to less than 2 hours per day. Children age 3
and under should watch no TV or videos whatsoever.

You may think your eyes are pretty reliable when it
comes to estimating how much food you've eaten,
but a clever study by Brian Wansink [Obesity
Research 2005; 13:93-100] shows you how easy it is
to be fooled. Study subjects were asked to eat a
bowl of soup, not realizing that as they ate their
soup with a spoon, the bowl was imperceptibly filled,
automatically replacing some of the soup as it was
consumed. The unsuspecting subjects wound up
eating 73% more soup from the trick bowls than
control subjects eating from normal bowls. The
overeaters were asked to rate how full they felt and
the results showed they felt no more full than the
control subjects who ate so much less soup!

Why is this study so important? Because of
supersizing - this is a standard marketing technique
in restaurants, movie theaters, donut shops and
elsewhere. The size of portions has been increasing
steadily over the past several decades, especially for
foods offered outside the home. Since most of us
eat or drink all of what is set before us, the result is
habitual overconsumption - leading to obesity.

The lessons of this study: (1) Don't feel compelled to
clean your plate (or empty your soup bowl). (2)
Practice the Asian custom of always leaving some
food on your plate at the end of a meal. (3) Eat
slowly and mindfully - know that you must be vigilant
to avoid overeating.

We were recently stuck traveling from 5 in the
morning until 5 in the evening, without a break for a
regular meal. On the final leg of the journey, a flight
from Denver, CO to Newark, NJ, the flight attendants
offered us the opportunity to spend $5 to purchase
a "snack box". Because most of the foods in the box
carried a nutrition label, we were able to determine
that the snack box contained more than 1000
calories, which far exceeds what you would expect
for an entire meal, much less a snack! Furthermore,
if you use the "5 - 20 Rule" to evaluate the
nutritional value of the various foods in the snack
box, you learned that they delivered very little in the
way of nutritional value. For those who are
concerned about weight management, the airlines
are certainly NOT a member of your support group.
The Lesson: When you travel, be sure to plan ahead
so that you are not in a position where you have to
order a snack box to ward off hunger.

FITNESS VS. FATNESS - BOTH ARE IMPORTANT

You may be following the controversy surrounding
fitness versus fatness. One school of thought claims
that physical fitness offsets the negative effects of
obesity. They also argue that thin people who are
unfit face a disease risk that is just as high as that
associated with obesity. The other school of
thought argues that the disease risks of fatness
outweigh the benefits of fitness, and that the
argument is beside the point since so few obese
individuals are fit. In an ongoing study of more than
116,000 women between the ages of 30 to 55, Frank
Hu and his colleagues took another look at this
issue.

In this study, fatness was assessed by using the
body mass index (BMI). They also examined the
physical activity levels of these women over a 24
year period to see which is more important - fitness
or fatness - in predicting premature death. What
they found is that a higher BMI predicted a higher
risk of death regardless of the level of physical
activity. High levels of physical activity were found
to have beneficial effects on health, but higher levels
of physical activity did NOT eliminate the higher risk
of premature death associated with obesity

After 24 years of studying these women, 10,282
deaths occurred. Here is how the data for the four
groups of women stacked up:

Group 1 was The Standard Group: These lean (BMI
<25), active (>3.5 hrs/week) women had the lowest
risk of death, so this group is the standard for
comparison purposes.
Group 2: Lean, inactive women had a risk that was
50% higher than the Standard Group.
Group 3: Obese (BMI>30), active women faced a
nearly doubled risk of death compared to the
Standard Group
Group 4: Obese, inactive women faced the highest
risk of all, which was nearly 2.5X greater than the
risk of the Standard Group.

The Lesson: Both weight management and physical
activity are important for good health and longevity.
[Reference: Hu et al. New England J Medicine 2004;
351:2694-2703]